The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said that youths could play a significant role in deciding the direction of the 2023 elections, given their level of participation in the voters’ registration exercise across the country.

The commission said that out of the 15.7 million that participated in the exercise, the youth population between the ages of 18 and 34 stood at 9.2 million.

The INEC Commissioner and Chairman of Information and Voter Education, Mr. Festus Okoye, stated this in Ado-Ekiti at the weekend during the multi-stakeholders conference on increasing young voters’ turnout at the Ekiti election, organised by Kimpact Development Initiative (KDI).

Okoye, however, cautioned the youths that their efforts would come to nothing unless they do the right thing by making use of their Permanent Voter Cards (PVC) to vote during elections starting with the June 18 governorship poll.

MEANWHILE, the Bishop of the Living Grace Evangelistic Ministry, Yinka Aboderin, has urged youths to vote out the current generation of political leaders with their votes in the 2023 general elections.

He warned that if they fail to participate in the voting process, the current political leaders would continue to oppress them.

Earlier in his remarks, the Team Leader of KDI, the convener of the conference, Mr. Bukola Idowu, said that the PVC should not just be means of identification, urging people to use it to vote.

“We should all participate as citizens. If we don’t participate, then we don’t have any right to criticise those in government,” he charged.